LETTER: PLANNED DEMOLITION OF UMASS HOUSING ESPECIALLY HARD ON INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
As a former resident of North Village, the article of September 5th in The Daily Hampshire Gazette entitled “UMass moves ahead on $200M project to replace 2 apartment complexes“ (see also UMass Amherst to Seek Proposals from Private Developers in The indy) left me disappointed, upset, and angry but more importantly, worried. UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski’s comments were dismissive of the extra challenges that international graduate students in Amherst face in finding affordable housing.
Families like mine have many constraints that impede their ability to afford housing. For example, F-2 visa holders (spouses and children of F-1 nonimmigrant student visa holders) are not allowed to work under any condition, meaning that only one source of income is available to the family regardless of how many people are part of the household. The F-1 student visa holder meanwhile is only permitted to work 20 hours a week, on campus when school is in session. The option of taking a second job to supplement their income is not available to them. Working illegally while on an F-1 visa could result in deportation.
A two-bedroom unit in Amherst costs more than $1,000 per month, without utilities. International students are not eligible for federal or state-subsidized programs like food stamps, Medicare. or Section 8 housing vouchers. Most international students are unable to afford their living expenses, let alone pay market rate for housing. This I know, not just from my own experience as the spouse of an F-1 visa holder but from my time at the Amherst Survival Center’s Food Pantry, which helps feed many international graduate student families.
So I ask UMass leaders and the Amherst community, how does giving nine months notice help families like mine or change anything for them? Why does the community not seem to care? How is UMass going to support the new families of international students coming in future months and years? Of course, it’s not only international students that are affected but students’ families in general.
Please, if you see the wrong in this, raise your voice and let UMass know they need to do right by these students and their families. Amherst, it’s time to live up to the type of people you say you are.
Niri Karina, Amherst
A few quick comments:
1. The public-private partnerships are vehicle for UMass to avoid paying union wages for new construction and get around public funding limits for capital projects. They are being promoted by local government to potentially recoup otherwise lost real estate revenues (since UMass is unlikely to make PILOTs = payments in lieu of taxes), and are also potential boondoggle to the private sector over the long run, which will profit from the rental income charged to future tenants.
2. The quality of construction is often much lower than what is required for public buildings.
UMass dormitories, for example, are supposed to be “fireproof” construction with sprinkler systems and alarms tied directly to the public safety (fire and police) facilities (compare with the 5-story wooden firetraps in Amherst Center and on Olympia Drive). Rob Kusner
3. UMass could do this in stages and at other sites: first build a new housing community, say, on or nearer campus, then renovating or replacing the Lincoln Apartments, and then North Village, letting residents migrate “organically” over several years, rather than creating a multitude of “refugees” (the current plan isn’t quite as extreme as the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar, but…).
It really seems thoughtless to disrupt many students’ lives this way without a clear plan for handling the consequences. Does the university think the local housing market can handle this displacement? Seems hard to believe. I feel for the students who chose UMass over other options with the understanding that the university has a family housing community, only to have to deal with this disruption on top of all the usual stresses of being a grad student.
Surely this could have been done more thoughtfully, and with more notice to students. And is demolition and rebuilding really necessary? I wonder if this story about North Village and Lincoln being dilapidated isn’t just a pretext for privatization.
Uri Strauss